Open Source Works, Just Ask Facebook

FACEBOOK LIKES TO share its toys. Over the years, the company has released the source code and designs formany of its internal projects, allowing the rest of the world to use them, modify them, and build on themâall for free.

Plenty of companies are now releasing open source projects in the hopes that other companies will help improve their software, but Facebook stands out because its projects actually end up being used by so many others. A startup called Datastax built an entire company to support users of Facebookâs database Cassandra, and now even Apple is exploring the use of Facebookâs ambitious server designs in its data centers.

So itâs no surprise that one of Facebookâs newest open source projects, Presto, is winning over outside companies too.